By the time you read this the world will have changed

Entries tagged with news

So, after nearly a decade at this site, LJ finally does something that makes me actually rage. No popcorn and laughing as the masses storm to news posts complaining, this time I'm actually worried.

A while back I was invited to help out with BETA testing new LJ services (I got this invite via lj_releases).

They have just announced BETA testing of a new friendslist.

LJ is planning on redoing everyone's friendslists in the style of the new comment page and update page. They want to copy tumblr and make your friendslist into a dashboard-like system page (infinite scrolling and all). It's also been renamed to "feed" (this I don't mind too much, though). In fact the whole dashboard idea with infinite scrolling wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that everyone will be locked to one specific layout. The system style comment pages are bad enough, but now I'll have to strain my eyes reading my flist? That defeats the purpose of this entire site. The font, use of whitespace, oversized boxes and UI elements ... all contribute to making the page difficult to read, on a site where all you do is read. Aaaah. Even just the possibility of adjusting the font (style and size) would make this suggestion easier to swallow, but it's still not something I'd want for my journal. It would not improve my LJ experience in any way (in fact it would most likely make my daily LJ activities more time consuming).

Now, I wasn't able to make the BETA page display my own friendslist, so I apologise to the random users who are featured in the screenshot, but to give everyone an idea, the below image shows you what your friendslist probably will look like in a couple of months.

(Click for big)

I never switched over from Dystopia, so that adds to the weirdness. You're going to have to picture this with the standard LiveJournal drop down navigation + no blue sidebar to the left. Click the screenshots for bigger versions.

Top of page with links to journal, archive, profile

Example of text heavy post as displayed on friendslist

New buttons to the right replace the navigation strip. One tab for filters

One tab for Archive/Calendar, you can filter your feed to display posts from one specific date. These buttons follow along as you scroll down the page (infinite scrolling).

The friends page has been redesigned as a system page for all users, and is now available for Beta testers. There is a link at the top of your friends page allowing you to switch between the new and old versions, and will later go into public beta testing. You can switch back and forth between both versions throughout beta testing.

You can also see the proposed changes for yourself by enabling the BETA on your own journal (instructions from ruljautonews):

It's trivially easy to test beta features.1) Go to lj_ru_beta and request to join.2) Wait to get confirmation that you've been accepted into the community (this could take a few hours.)3) Go to this page and choose Go To under Beta.4) That's it, you're now testing the beta release. All site-scheme pages should now display a big "BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA BETA" in yellow letters across the top.5) You could make comments in the lj_ru_beta post, but if you do please keep this in mind: the majority of commenters there don't speak English and if they do it's not their primary language. Machine translation of Russian is lousy. "My hovercraft is full of eels" lousy. While you can engage in basic dialogue and get a feel for what the other person is saying, don't get too hung up on anyone's phrasing.

You can easily switch back to the old version.

Make sure you let LJ know what you think of these proposed changes, I can't be the only one who thinks this is a horrible idea.

ETA: It's nice to see that I'm not the only one worried about the proposed changes, but please direct your feedback through the proper channels. This is a private journal, I have no affiliation with LJ. Please also be respectful when addressing the LJ staff. They are just doing their jobs. Thanks!

I've said nothing about the shootings at Virginia Tech. I didn't go to Tech, and I don't know anyone who was killed or injured in the shootings. It's hard, however, to live in Virginia, and not know someone connected with Tech. And certainly I see the tragedy, and understand the grief, and how earth shattering an event like that can be.

Some people are using these events as a springboard to discuss guns. I'm not. I don't talk about my feelings on guns and gun control...I think very few people know what my feelings and opinions are, and that's fine. They don't influence my day to day interactions with my friends who may hold similar or different opinions. They do influence things like how I vote.

What I'm not seeing from my friends, and largely from the media as well is an equally, if not more important discussion about mental illness. This is, to me, less an issue about guns and accessibility and availability than it is an issue of mental health-of appropriate intervention, screening, availability of mental health services and resources. This is someone who demonstrated that he was in need of help, and yet, despite reported efforts by several different sources, slipped through the cracks, and never got the help he so clearly needed. Why? If he'd gotten what he needed from mental health resources, it's likely that we wouldn't be talking about guns right now.

There are people on various sides of the gun issue on my f'list, some of whom talk about it, and some of whom don't. There are also people on my f'list who struggle with mental health challenges and issues, some of whom talk about it and some of whom don't. I see more about the issue of guns as it relates to the events at Virginia Tech than about the mental health issue. And that makes me very sad.

A note about comments-I rarely turn them off or screen them. They're screened on this post-there are some contentious issues here, and I don't have the energy to deal with certain kinds of debate right now. If you're okay with your comment being unscreened, let me know, but it remins at my discretion, as does the freezing of threads that overwhelms me.

It's worth noting that I've read elsewhere, that the Tampa Bay Police have since changed their policy to allow more discretion by the supervisors, to "review circumstances surrounding incidents involving victims of violent crime and make a final decision that appropriately balancing compassion and duty." I'm still wondering whether that covers the medical treatment the woman was denied, when the jail employee refused to give her the second dose of the morning after pill.

We felt the shaking, looked at each other and said "Nah, it can't be an earthquake." I went to the USGS website to see if it was, and Cayne went to the front window to see if there was anything like a truck that might have made the rumble. The first time I checked, the USGS website didn't have it up yet, but when I refreshed shortly after, it was there, and we filled out the form.

What I said to Cayne is that the earthquakes I've felt feel more like side to side shaking whereas trucks or trains feel like up and down shaking.